The present disclosure relates to electronic device screens and, more specifically, to methods and systems for screen turn off override control.
An electronic device, such as a cell phone, will save power by automatically dimming or turning off the device screen after a turn off timer expires. The electronic device will monitor activity, such as a user touching a screen or a user engaging a peripheral device. After a certain amount of inactivity, the turn off timer will expire causing the device screen to turn off or dim. This feature allows for these electronic devices to preserve battery life.
The automatic turn off feature is sometimes undesirable. In the case where a user is fixated on the screen but not actively touching or interacting with the screen, this feature can frustrate a user's ability to utilize the device. For example, the turn off feature would not be desirable if a user is playing a video game that does not require active touching of the screen (e.g., the accelerometer feature of the device is used to control the device).
Most cell phone users enable some sort of screen locking mechanism of the cell phone to prevent others from using the cell phone. When the screen automatically turns off after the screen turn off timer expires, the cell phone's screen locking mechanism also locks the cell phone. Thus, the user must also perform the additional task of waking up the cell phone and unlocking it before continuing with the interrupted operation.